


A Frosty Friendship

by nazangel



Series: Carry On Countdown 2019 [28]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Female Friendship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Humor, Ice Powers, Magic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nazangel/pseuds/nazangel
Summary: Priya and Mordelia are roommates. Everybody around them has a permanent headache.
Relationships: Priya Bunce & Mordelia Grimm, Snowbaz - Relationship, malcolm/daphne
Series: Carry On Countdown 2019 [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554211
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2019





	A Frosty Friendship

**MALCOLM**

“Father, look I met my roommate,”

I turn around and see my oldest daughter pulling another girl along with her.

She seems a little familiar. Brown skin, long frizzy hair...

Oh no.

Beside me, I hear Mitali hiss.

“Are you serious,” she mutters

“Oh, Hi, mum. Mordelia Grimm is my roommate,”

“I can see that, sweetheart,” says Mitali

“That’s wonderful,” I tell both girls

“Now we can be friends,” says Priya, “Like Baz and Penny,”

A feeling of dread rises through me as Mitali nods her head and congratulates them again.

I also bring myself to smile and nod even though I feeling like cursing at the sky.

Merlin and Morgan, Why?

* * *

“We’re going to look around more,” says Priya, tugging my daughter right along with her.

“Sure girls,” I say

“Be careful,” says Mitali

Once the girls are gone, she turns towards me.

“Did you just see your life flash before your eyes, because I did,”

“Maybe it won’t be that bad,” I say, trying to convince myself too, “As long as they don’t kill corrupt members of the coven,”

“Or go fight vampires in the States,”

“Well, in their defence they were adults when they did that,”

“Doesn’t matter, Malcolm! It still gave me a heart attack,”

“Maybe they’ll be like normal roommates,” I say hopefully, “Do normal troublesome things, like skip classes and stay up late,”

Oh, Merlin, I’m hoping my daughter skips her classes instead of fighting some sort of magical creatures. What has the world come to?

“Hey,” says Daphne, coming up behind me, “Did you hear? Our daughters are roommates,”

“Oh. We heard,” says Mitali, “And we’re terrified,”

“Oh, it won’t be that bad,” she says, patting Mitali’s arm.

Mitali goes on another rant, and I tune her out and instead watch Priya and Mordelia, who are now back from their exploration and seem to be talking to each other a mile a minute.

Maybe it won’t be that bad.

xxx

I was wrong. It was that bad.

**Mitali**

Simon visits us at Christmas with Baz. This time Mordelia insists on coming too. She and Priya have become good friends in the few months that they have been roommates.

Ever since the Mage was defeated, the Grimms and we have been in a much better place with each other. It helps that Daphne is a very kind and friendly soul and naturally balances any of Malcolm’s prickliness.

So neither of us overthinks of Mordelia coming over. She’ll come over on the 23rd, spend a night and Christmas Eve with us. Later that day, our three guests will head to the Grimms to have their Christmas celebration. 

Children have sleepovers all the time. We don't think anything unusual of it until Pip wakes me up in the middle of the night and tells me it’s too cold. The house is magically heated, so I don't know what he’s talking about, but I go to investigate anyway.

“It’s coming from Priya’s room,”

Pip’s room is right beside Priya’s, and sure enough, there’s fog coming from under her door. Alarmed, I open the door and find the two girls sitting in the middle of the room looking at the ice in wonder.

And oh, the ice. It’s covering the whole room. Icicles are hanging from the ceiling, the windows are frosted over, and the walls look like vertical ice skating rings. Even the floor has a thin layer on it. The furniture is also frozen solid.

In the middle of it, the two girls are huddled together with blankets around them.

“What happened here?” I ask them, gingerly stepping inside

“We learnt a new spell and wanted to see if we could do it,” said Priya, “We didn’t think it would get this big,”

“What spell?” I ask frowning. I would know if Watford was teaching Ice spells to first years.

“One of the eight years did it last year. His brother taught it to us. It’s Let it snow,”

I remember that spell. It is only supposed to cause a little bit of snow. Not to mention, it was supposed to be one of those spells that dwindled away after the phrase was forgotten by the world.

It certainly is not supposed to cause an ice age in my daughter’s room.

I took out my wand and cast, “As you were.’

The room instantly went back to the way it was.

I looked at the girls, “Let’s not do that again. No more magic for the night, okay?”

They both nodded and started to ready themselves for sleep.

I got my phone and put in a call to the Grimms. We all figured it would be the end of it. Priya and Mordelia, we’re both powerful young Mages. They most like just had a small mishap.

xxx

It wasn’t the end of it

xxx

**DAPHNE**

I’m sitting in Mitali’s office, along with our girls.

“So they keep icing their room,” says Mitali, “And frankly I’m at my wit's end,”

“We’re just trying to perfect the spell,” mutters Mordelia

“Look, girls,” I say, “You must be saying it wrong, which is okay. You’re still first years, you have a lot of time to perfect casting. However, constantly filling your room with ice is not helping anyone and disrupts everybody’s sleep,”

“We’re just trying to-”

“It’s my fault!” bursts out Priya, and the poor thing looks so upset, “I'm the one that’s doing it. Mordelia’s is fine,”

“No it’s-” starts Mordelia

“You don't have to lie for me,” says Priya

Mitali looks at her daughter, quizzically.

“Priya, what are you talking about?” 

“As soon as I think about Snow and Ice, something big happens. At first, I thought it was just the spell, but Mordelia can do it alone, but whenever I try it alone, it goes like that. Mordelia tries to help, but hse couldn't contain it the first time and then she tried to direct it, and it still didn’t help. Sometimes it just starts on its own. I don’t know what to do,”

Mitali is moving to kneel in front of her daughter now.

“Oh sweetheart,” she says, “Why didn’t you say anything,”

She just shrugs.

Mitali squeezes her hand, “Why don’t you girls show us what you're talking about?”

They nod. Mordelia slides closer to Priya and puts an encouraging arm around her.

Priya puts her hand out and closes her eyes in concentration while Mordelia lifts her wand.

“Let it snow!” says Mordelia. It happens quickly, and if I hadn’t been watching Priya’s hand, I probably would have missed it. Instead of originating from her spell, the ice started from Priya’s _hand._

I quickly pull out my wand and cast a containment spell, something Malcolm taught me as a precaution as soon as Basilton had started to summon fire.

It works. Instead of coating the whole room, the ice solidifies into a ball and falls to the ground.

**PRIYA**

“So, I’m an ice Mage?” I ask my mother

“It would seem so, Darling,” she says

“So, how do I stop it?”

“You can’t, sweetheart. You have to learn to control it. It will come with practice. Also, the reason it bursts like that is that you start pulling from Mordelia’s magic as soon as you cast together,”

I frown.

“Why?”

Mordelia nods from beside me. I can tell she’s curious too.

“You girls have heard the stories of the two Mages,” says Daphne, “The ones who were in love but their Magic drove each other mad because they weren’t compatible,”

We nod.

“Well, you have the opposite problem. You’re too compatible,”

“But I don’t want to pull from Mordelia. That’s not fair. What if we’re in class and she can’t be my partner because of that,”

My mother shakes her head, “It’s not like that, honey. Magic, like water, flows from the bigger pool to the smaller one. You're both very powerful, but she has more magic, so it flows toward you. As you get older, you’ll be able to control the shift. Until then and until you control the ice inside of you, let’s refrain from doing unsupervised magic together. If you want to practice casting a spell, don’t do it at the same time, okay?”

We nod. But in my head, I’m already planning on practicing more.

xxx

“Let me guess,” says Mordelia, as soon as we get to our room, previously Simon and Baz’s, “We’re not listening to them are we,”

I smile at her, “You know me so well,”

And she does. Just like I know her too. I didn’t think I would find a friend as good as her, but I did. And I’m thrilled. 

I wonder if this is how Penny feels about Simon.

“Let’s do it again,” I tell her.

“This isn’t going to end well,” she says, but she’s already pulling out her wand.

“Ready?”

“Ready,”

xxx

We end up coating the whole room again.

**Mitali**

I don’t know why I thought those girls would listen to me.

One’s a Grimm and the other one's my daughter. Of course, they didn’t listen.

In the end, I put their room in a containment spell and leave them to it. At least, it doesn’t hurt them.

**Baz**

My father is standing in front of our Christmas tree with a pinched look on his face.

And I can’t blame him.

The tree is frozen solid with the two twelve years olds standing in front of it sheepishly.

“I thought we told you the rules with your magic,” says Malcolm

“But we have control now, we haven't coated any rooms for months,” says Mordelia, “And Priya can summon it safely now too,”

“Yeah, she’s right,” says Priya

“I’m sorry, girls,” says my father, “ _But does this look safe to you?!,”_

He says it with a most sarcastic tone and with his hands waving. A don't know whether to be alarmed or amused. My father is usually a very...contained person.

He looks anything but contained right now.

However, its a testament to how much my sister knows my father that she only smiles happily and continues on with a sweet voice.

“We’re sorry, Father,” says Mordelia, “We really didn't mean to ruin it. We’re just trying to expand and see if we can do certain things. We shouldn't have tried anything as advance as icicles on a tree yet,”

“Don’t think I don't know what you’re doing,” mutters my father, but I can already see him softening.

“And we would never do it somewhere adults weren’t around,” says Priya, “We know better than that,”

Mordelia nods along empathetically.

Merlin and Morgana, these girls are good.

My father finally sighs and sends them along, casting a few spells to fix the tree.

“I didn’t think it was this bad,” I comment to my father

He sighs heavily as we both sit down on the sofa, “Well, first they froze their room, once they stopped that they started freezing their food while trying to cool it with Priya’s power. Now that that’s mastered, they keep trying to make shapes with it,”

“So they’re learning through trial and error,”

“Something like that,” he says, “The other day, I asked Mordelia if the ice bothered her fire powers and guess what she said?”

Mordelia had a fire in her. Not as much as me, or even Father, but still it was there.

“What did she say?” I ask

“She said she likes the ice better,” says Father with a wrinkled nose

“Really?” 

“Really,” he says, “She also said that she mostly liked helping Priya direct her ice which obviously comes from-”

“Mother’s Empath powers,” I finish for him

Father nods, “Apparently she’s another one of of my children that takes after her mother,”

He smiles at me, and I tentatively put my head on his shoulder. 

“Merry Christmas, Father,” I say

“Merry Christmas, Basilton,”

It’s a sweet moment.

Until it’s interrupted by a crashing sound. I’m instantly on my feet, but Father puts a soothing hand on my arm.

“Don’t worry, they probably crashed another contained ice ball,”

“Oh,”

xxx

Apparently, the trial and errors mostly contain errors.

**PENELOPE**

There’s water dripping into the hallway.

I look up, and there’s snow sticking to the ceiling. 

Actual Snow. On the ceiling. And it’s melting.

“PRIYA! MORDELIA!”

Both girls come running and instantly slip on the floor, landing in a pile of long limbs and flying hair.

They both look up and look at each other.

“Next step,” says Mordelia, “Learn to maintain it,”

“Agreed,” says Priya

“First clean this up,” I tell them, “By hand,”

They groan but get up to get the mop and bucket. I do make the snow disappear, though.

I spend the rest of Christmas Eve supervising them.

So this is why Mum always made up clean by hand. I have to say it’s satisfying.

xxx

Two weeks, there’s snow again. At least this time, it doesn’t drip _too_ much.

**MORDELIA**

We carefully creep close to the moat, standing at a safe distance.

“Ready,” I whisper to Priya

She nods and holds out her hand. The ice starts to form, and I take her hand to direct it while holding my wand with the other.

I keep shouting the words for the next few minutes. When we’re done, the moat is frozen solid.

“We did it” whispers Priya

I just stare in shock. We had tried this on smaller bodies of water-glasses, baths, ponds and such-but I didn’t think it would work here.

But it did.

“We did it,” Priya says again

A huge grin spreads on my face.

“We did it,”

xxx

Mitali levels a disappointed look at us while Mother and Father both look like they're about to get a headache.

Neither one of us cares.

**MARTIN**

“You froze his foot?” I ask my daughter for what must be the hundredth time

“He hurt my best friend,” she answers, expression ruthless and unremorseful.

I sigh. Well, this was going to be a problem.

“Darling, you cannot go around freezing people that are mean to your or Mordelia. There are better ways to handle things that aren’t so...physical. Do you understand?

She slumps her shoulders, “Yes Dad,”

xxx

Five days later, another boy has his hair encased in ice.

“He’s not hurt,” is all Priya says

At least it’s progress.

**SIMON**

I never attended my own graduation ceremony. This is the first one I’ll be attending.

Mordelia and Priya are graduating today. Tied for the title of ‘top of the class;. 

It’s not a surprise, really. They do everything together.

They give their speech together too. Talking mostly about their friendship and how Watford is a wonderful place to cultivate relationships such as theirs.

“We thought we would show you a little part of our friendship,” says Mordelia

“Don’t worry everyone,” says Priya, “We practiced this time,”

There are a few chuckles from around the room from the people who have seen them through their journey.

Hand in hand with Baz, I lean forward in anticipation.

The girls link their hands and raise their wands into the air.

A few words later, there’s snow falling from the sky. It's big and soft, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Your sisters are amazing,” I tell Baz and Penny

“They are aren’t they?” says Penny

“Right you are Darling,” says Baz with a kiss to my cheek

xxx

It’s one oft he most beautiful friendships I've ever seen. They might just come close to Penelope and me.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed!


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